Hello and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound. I had an interesting weekend…I went to my first body building contest. Whoa! Better back up before you bust a gut…I did not enter the contest…my middle daughter did…I was just there for moral support. She has recently gotten back into getting into shape and some people at the gym were urging her to enter the physical fitness part of the bodybuilding show that was being held in her home town of Knoxville. So she got a coach and really got into it; special meals…gym at 5am in the morning….special bikini etc. It is crazy what they have to go through…not only in preparation but during the show. She had to be up at 4am to get ready for the pre-judging that started at 9am Saturday. They have to get their exercise in …eat and drink their special meals…get tanned [and I mean “really” tanned]…make-up..hair etc. Even with that early start…she was not on the stage till about 11am..then they had to do it all over again for the finals that started at 5:30pm that evening. Again, her group did not go on till about 11 pm with final awards around midnight. They have all kinds of classes that individuals can compete in ..novice…masters…age…size..men and women ..[not sure if I captured them all]…but anyway, my daughter did place fourthin one event. Very proud of her….took a lot of effort and dedication even more so considering that she has a full time job and a family to take care of. Other than a long weekend with a first time experience, we almost had another experience on the way back that would not have been as nice. Traffic on I-75 was crazy with traffic slowing down at unpredictable times, and for the most part for no particular reason. It is what I called “phantom” delays…you get down the road…see nothing and everything returns to normal speed. Anyway, we were nearing Louisville, traffic was heavy, and we were all hauling along at a pretty good pace…three lanes wide when the red brake lights started to spread like wild fire ahead. I started to brake..pumping my brakes to alert the big 8 wheeler behind me that traffic was coming to an unplanned halt. As I was watching the car in front of me, making sure I was not going to climb his bumper, and keeping an eye on the trucker to make sure he was applying his brakes, I saw in my the rear view mirror a blue sedan fly around the semi-truck. It was obvious he was not slowing down. He was in the far outside lane, and somehow found a space between me and truck to squeeze through…and I do mean squeeze. He wound up in the inside lane where there was another gap and somehow he was able to regain control of his car. His tires were smoking as he slid sideways, somehow avoiding hitting anything, and wound up straddling my lane and the inside lane. It happened so fast I did not even have time to react. It was a major miracle that somehow with traffic backing up to a dead stop there was enough space, in the right places, to avoid a serious and potentially fatal collision.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK
“The only exercise some people get is jumping to conclusions, running down their friends, side-stepping responsibility, and pushing their luck. Dogpound Wisdom
That is all I have today. As always be good, do good, play safe and remember things in your rear view mirror might be coming right at you.
JR
